May 3rd, 4th & 5th. For six months we'd waited for this weekend. I'd made plans with my fishing partner, Gray. We'd chosen the three rivers we would fish each day and followed the weather, water flows and temperatures meticulously. Our plan was perfect. We'd fish a trophy trout river the first day, a wild trout river the second and finish up the 3rd on a small, local wild brook trout stream. The conditions could not have been better. High pressure with 60* air temperature and ideal water temperatures and flows. The bite would be on. Our gear packed and stowed.
Then it happend. 20 hours before departure, I begin to feel burning and aching in my lower left back & rib cage. This to be followed by chills and a headache. Then comes an upset stomach. By 7pm I could not move without immense pain in my back. Any range of motion- bending, flexion gone. I was locked up and in trouble. My intial thought, food poisoning and a severe back spasm. By 11pm I knew it was more severe. It hurt to even breath. Sleeping was impossible. At 1am I phoned Gray and left him a voicemail along with a text. The trip was off. Nothing short of learning of a loved one's death could I be this upset. The pit in my stomach felt deep, black and overwhelming.
At 9amFriday morning I was not on my trophy river. I was not again feeling the flow of liquid aqua against my legs, hearing thecalls of nature, experiencing that spiritual moment with an unwielding appreciation for all that the real world has to offer. And I was not feeling the bend of the rod and the power of the pull as an 18" brown trout took me downstream like a freight train.
Instead, I was in the doctors office. The sounds of nature replaced by the sounds of people coughing, chattering on their cell phones and complaining to the receptionist. This could not be happening. But it was and in this time and space was real. Finally, after a twenty minute examination by the doctor, my diagnosis; Shingles. A virus that remains dormant from having chickenpox. It can re-activate at any time however most often when one's immune system is weak. It choose a vulnerable part of the body and attacks the nerve endings. The cure; antibiotics, pain medication and rest. Recovery time; two to four weeks depending on one's own body to recover.
It is now Saturday Day 2 of the trip. I sit in my office, medicated and typing. As I look out the window on this beautiful spring day I think how Gray and I would have been waist deep now nymphing for wild rainbows. Or maybe we'd have been swinging large streamers on sinking lines in the big pools of this, my favorite river, or even possibly tying on a #16 Hendrickson or #12 Quill Gordon as the hatches begin to show. But there will be no fishing for me today or sadly, for the next several weeks. The wait must continue. And though the pain of this god forsaken virus will eventually leave, the pain of what should have and could have been will never go away.
If there is a life lesson to be learned from all this I say "Live your life as you choose, not what others would choose for you, for tomorrow may never come".
-ASM
No comments:
Post a Comment